Picasso's Bulls: getting a lot more complex before getting to simple
- Picasso's Bulls: getting a lot more complex before getting to simple
- Picasso's Bulls describe the creative journey perfectly.
- Picasso draws the bull over and over until it becomes almost nothing, and somehow more true.
- The graph I drew under it explains the journey in complexity across time: complexity rises first, then declines. You do not get to "perfectly simple" by starting simple. You get there by exhausting the subject.
- This is the operating loop:
- Make the maximal version.
- Rewrite it so someone else can follow.
- Cut until the meaning would break if you cut more.
- Compress to one sentence you can carry.
- It's the same move in product. Let the first version be a full-bodied bull. Then iterate toward the icon. Simplicity is not restraint, it's refinement.